Love Travels through Time (My father who traveled through time and space to cultivate immortality came back to pick me up) - Chapter 74
Chapter 74: No Road Back from Bian City (11)
Not yet completely conscious, Xiang Haikui didn’t know who was tightly binding her; her instinct assumed that Jing Ran couldn’t hold on any longer and had switched to someone else.
Hearing that it was Yin Changli—just like back when she went mad while absorbing demon power and he would use Tianren sword aura to soothe her—her frenzy and violent hostility gradually subsided, and her body slowly stopped struggling.
The iron taste of blood in her mouth served as a stark reminder that she seemed to have bitten him.
In a state of transformation and frenzy, she didn’t even need to look to know how hard her bite had been.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t in my right mind,” she apologized first, then grit her teeth and said heavily, “But release me. I didn’t choose this path out of a refusal to fuse, so even if you have ten thousand other ways, none of them are the solution I want.”
“I understand.”
Yin Changli understood everything, yet he kept her coiled securely within his body, wrapping tighter and tighter to prevent her from struggling again, whispering gentle comfort, “But this is enough. You have already done so well. Leave the rest to me—I will help you take revenge, and I won’t let him off easily…”
Xiang Haikui could not hear a word of it at this moment; the mad intent of Tian Kuang was quickly taking over her mind once more.
“Let go of me, do you hear me! This is my own affair! This is between him and me—what does it have to do with you? On what grounds do you ask me to hand it over to you?”
She began to struggle again, and he coiled even tighter.
“I understand you, but to watch you hurt yourself like this with my own eyes—I cannot do it.”
“Doing what’s best for me again, is that it? Can I choose to be ungrateful and refuse your kindness?”
“I…”
“What do you expect me to think? Just like how he thought going to great lengths to deceive and hide things from me was all for my own good, and that I should accept it with utmost gratitude? Yin Changli, this self-righteous look of yours is no different from his!”
Stopping her when she wanted to risk her life to fight was just as self-righteous as killing her when she wanted to endure humiliation just to survive!
There was no difference!
Xiang Haikui struggled once more, even extending the sharp, sword-like scales of her outer layer, grating against his own scales with an ear-splitting screech!
Yin Changli had already forced a clone out to break through the encirclement; after the “shadow” left behind was shattered, the backlash struck his body like a heavy fist. Now, in sheer agony, he instinctively coiled his tail even tighter.
“Are you letting go or not!”
He gritted his teeth.
“Fine!”
When she went mad, he wouldn’t suppress her with heavy blows like Jing Ran did. Consequently, he was dragged along by her as they plummeted downward, crashing down from a hundred-fathom-tall palace building all the way to the foundation, causing a circle of deep cracks to fracture across the sea-city’s base—a structure that had endured for hundreds of thousands of years.
Crack!
The fissures shattered as a hole ruptured through the foundation, falling into the Underworld Sea with a heavy splash.
With a series of rumbling explosions, the palace buildings collapsed story by story, sending dust and debris flying in all directions, causing the floating city on the sea to rock violently in the Underworld Sea.
Above, Jing Ran spat out several mouthfuls of blood in succession.
The moment the spiritual energy he had condensed on Xiang Haikui’s meridians was severed, he immediately began healing his injuries.
Originally, his cultivation had only recovered to fifty percent.
After being stabbed twice by Xiang Haikui and subjected to all this turmoil, it had truly cost him more than half his life—he couldn’t even remember the last time he was wounded this severely, a matter from thousands of years ago.
“You useless trash!”
The moment he stabilized his state, he turned toward Jin Ying and the others in uncontrollable fury, “So many of you, yet you couldn’t even block a cripple whose hibernation just ended and whose cultivation is down to half! What on earth am I keeping you around for?!”
The turbid qi in the Underworld was heavy; unless one possessed extraordinary Inspiration or had grown up in the Underworld since childhood, members of the Celestial Clan could not withstand it.
That was precisely why Jing Ran had no choice but to rely on them, unable to deploy personnel from the Upper Realm.
Even knowing they were a bunch of useless trash, he had no choice.
He didn’t dare use a single one of the formidable subordinates left behind by his eldest brother.
Seeing that they were busy trying to capture Yin Changli again, Jing Ran barked a command to stop them.
“Forget about him! You’ve missed your chance—just worry about yourselves!”
With that, Jing Ran flew downward, diving into the sea to seize Xiang Haikui.
When he plunged into the Underworld Sea, the bone-chilling seawater poured directly into the wounds on his chest and abdomen, causing pain so intense he nearly passed out.
Not to mention that she represented his Celestial Clan’s single glimmer of hope—even if she didn’t, having sacrificed so much, he had to succeed.
People are just that wretched: the more it hurts, the harder it is to let go!
Furthermore, seeing Yin Changli snatch her away right from his side filled him with even greater rage.
How could a loser who once knelt at his feet have any right to take what belonged to him?!
Before the high officials of the Twelve Palaces could react to what the Celestial Emperor meant by those words, buzz—every single lantern hanging from the eaves of the palace buildings went dark in a split second.
This signified that the formation and restrictions protecting this floating sea-city had vanished!
The sounds of clashing weapons erupted within the inner city.
Just as they were about to head inside, someone shouted, “Look at the sea!”
No matter which direction one looked, the Underworld Sea—which normally wouldn’t float a single feather apart from marine life—was currently bearing dense, glittering crowds of strange fish atop giant waves, with a figure standing on the back of every fish.
These people wore feather garments and held feather fans. As the strange fish approached Bian City, they transformed one after another into gigantic teal birds, their talons gripping the dorsal fins of the strange fish, carrying them up onto the city.
Upon landing on the city walls, the teal birds transformed back into human form.
The strange fish beneath their claws transformed right after.
Bian City fell into complete chaos, turning into an absolute slaughterhouse.
Jin Ying frowned slightly.
“Is Yin Changli looking down on us that much? To attack Bian City, he only sent three clans?”
“Capture him first!” One of the palace lords pointed into the distance.
Jin Ying looked over; two people in that sector of the battlefield were carving their way toward the Twelve Palaces.
One of them had come looking for Xiang Haikui earlier.
At this moment, he was surrounded by a green toxic mist.
Whenever theUnderworld guards attacked him and touched the mist, they melted away with a bubbling sizzle.
Having just reached the Ninth grade previously, he had now directly stepped into the Tribulation-Passing Stage.
As for the other, he was a white-haired youth with a cultivation of merely the Seventh grade. His movements were somewhat clumsy, and he held two golden swords—one long, one short—in his hands.
“That rat demon is named Bai Xingxian. Though he is merely Yin Changli’s servant, Yin Changli treats him exceptionally well.”
Jin Ying virtually vanished on the spot, charging straight toward Bai Xingxian to kill him.
Now that the city was in total chaos, Lu Xiqiao and Bai Xingxian were finding it extremely difficult to make their way toward the Twelve Palaces.
Lu Xiqiao had originally intended to focus on cultivating his mind first, but to act as backup for Xiang Haikui, fearing his cultivation was too low, he had allowed his power to break through the barrier and stepped directly into the Tribulation-Passing Stage.
It was fine as long as he didn’t fight, but the moment he made a move, the surrounding carnage constantly agitated his mind, causing turbid qi to surge continuously within his body.
A flash of red light flickered in his eyes, but he quickly suppressed it.
“Little Brother Bai, you have to help block for me a bit.”
Lu Xiqiao ducked behind Bai Xingxian, trying to refrain from fighting as much as possible.
He didn’t want to suffer a qi deviation before even reaching the Twelve Palaces—that would truly be doing more harm than good.
“Ah?”
Bai Xingxian was already stretched thin to begin with; the moment Lu Xiqiao stopped fighting, his situation became even more dire.
Apart from a few leaders, the people of the Shanhai Clan didn’t know him at all, nor did anyone help him—not a single person passing by offered a hand.
Just as Lu Xiqiao was about to speak, he suddenly felt a powerful, overwhelming pressure bearing down on them.
“Watch out!”
His pupils shrank as he quickly spun around, stepping in front of Bai Xingxian.
Hand-seals forming, he concentrated half his spiritual energy to weave a green “spiderweb” before them.
That poisonous “spiderweb” flew outward, only to be sliced to pieces by a single finger from Jin Ying.
“A newly formed Dual-Fruit Body of the Harmonious Dao… possessing such power is quite impressive. In the future… what a pity, you have no future!”
“Cut the nonsense!”
Knowing the Underworld Lord’s ruthless methods, Bai Xingxian was frightened out of his wits.
Realizing this must be the critical moment his uncle spoke of, he extended his palm toward her, and a burst of golden flame surged out wildly!
Jin Ying hadn’t cared at first, but the moment the golden fire swept near and her soul began to shudder, a massive wave of panic engulfed her!
She dodged in a panic, and upon landing, her body began to tremble uncontrollably, like falling into an icy river in the dead of winter.
This was Inspiration suppression.
A level of Inspiration almost capable of rivaling that of the Celestial Emperor.
She stared in terror at the surprised, white-haired youth before her.
For Yin Changli to protect him like this, could he be the reincarnation of the Lord?
No, the Lord’s Inspiration was even stronger than the Celestial Emperor’s.
He wasn’t that strong.
He must be a bloodline descendant of the Lord.
“Someone, come here!”
Jin Ying retreated in panic.
As a member of the Celestial Clan, no matter how low Bai Xingxian’s cultivation was, she could not overcome his Inspiration and had no choice but to call for top experts who were non-Celestial Clan members.
—
The black snake remained coiled around the flood dragon, continuously sinking deeper into the Underworld Sea.
The flood dragon’s blade-like scales pierced through the snake scales, driving into the flesh beneath, dyeing the surrounding seawater red wherever they passed.
The seawater grew colder and colder, yet Yin Changli did not resist it.
A colder environment might help cool the demon blood inside her body as well, though he simultaneously took care not to injure her.
With her body numbed by the cold, her hatred and fury seemed to gradually solidify as well.
Xiang Haikui did not retract those blade scales, but the amplitude of her struggles slowly diminished.
“Let go of me,” she still insisted.
And Yin Changli finally thought of a way to frame it.
“Just treat it as giving me an opportunity to offer an apology. It’s not helping you—it’s a transaction. Let me buy some peace of mind, alright?”
“What are you apologizing for? What did you do wrong!”
“A great deal. From the day I decided to alter fate and chose you as a pawn, I was wrong.”
“You were never wrong.”
Xiang Haikui wasn’t speaking out of anger.
She had already come to realize that their relationship was a transaction to begin with, and what he had given her had always exceeded what she contributed.
Her dissatisfaction with him was, in truth, merely her own temper.
Back in her hometown, she had constantly chased after Jing Ran’s footsteps.
When she was brought to this world by Yin Changli, she began following Yin Changli’s instructions.
He was an immortal, he was her savior, and he was her boss.
She placed near-total trust in him.
“Before you entered hibernation, you said that once you woke up, you would hold up the sky if it fell. During those ten years when you lost your memory, you made countless promises to me. Even the day before you woke up, you were still telling me that once you awoke, we’d see who would dare say that staying by your side was seeking my own death…”
Xiang Haikui possessed self-awareness and had never taken those words to heart.
Yet even though she had built a wall around her heart, it was inevitable that a bit of wind would leak through.
What “fortitude” feared most wasn’t “hardship,” but “tenderness.”
A hundred thousand tons of hardship couldn’t match that tiny drop of tenderness.
After he awoke, he was able to draw clear distinctions right away, whereas her own feelings grew somewhat blurred; inevitably, she felt aggrieved, and her expectations of him became increasingly harsh.
“But gradually, I realized it was my own mindset that was wrong, not your fault. Between us, it was originally a clean-cut, settled transaction…”
Even if he had genuinely developed feelings for her, she couldn’t demand that he had to treat her well; that made no sense.
“Never mind all that for now,” Yin Changli only wanted to convince her as quickly as possible.
The Celestial Emperor wasn’t sinking as fast as their demon bodies, but he would arrive soon.
Once he saw him, if her state remained unstable, she would inevitably pick a fight with him again.
“You were dragged into this because of me this time. Whether it was him or Han Qi, I should have anticipated what they were trying to do and stopped them in advance, but I…”
Xiang Haikui interrupted him.
“Even if you had anticipated it and taken me away in advance, the moment I found out what that lollipop he gave me really was…”
She paused, her tone turning vicious, “I would have sneaked back to stab him behind your back anyway!”
She emphasized once more, “This is between him and me; it has nothing to do with you. If you truly feel indebted to me, then respect my choice! Otherwise, you two are cut from the very same cloth!”
